I wasn't sure how far Erdogan was going to go in his apparently unwitting destruction of Turkey in the name of... whatever backward ideology he adheres to, but I think this really shows that he's going full retard.

I honestly think that is a good thing, and here's why:

If he'd only gone half-assed, then he'd still be able to explain failures away as not his fault.

This way, everything will be his fault, and the inevitable failure of his sad experiment will be apparent and evident.

leroy wrote:besides we don't live in the medieval age any more, if someone wants to learn abut evolution, you don't need a teacher, there books, documentaries, webpages, and many other free sources,

The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

leroy wrote:besides we don't live in the medieval age any more, if someone wants to learn abut evolution, you don't need a teacher, there books, documentaries, webpages, and many other free sources,

The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?

would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?

again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

leroy wrote:what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?

would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?

again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

If, as you say, time is limited why not teach the students the important stuff. In biology evolution is the most important thing. It lets you understand the rest of biology (religiously indoctrinated people excepted)

If you look at what kind of government Turkey has now it's obvious. They don't want educated populations. They want people to be gullible and not being able to think for themselves, religious is great for this.

leroy wrote:what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?

would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?

again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

If, as you say, time is limited why not teach the students the important stuff. In biology evolution is the most important thing. It lets you understand the rest of biology (religiously indoctrinated people excepted)

If you look at what kind of government Turkey has now it's obvious. They don't want educated populations. They want people to be gullible and not being able to think for themselves, religious is great for this.

So is learning about evolution, more important than learning about photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs or any other topic relevant to biology?

why ? under what basis?

all topics are important, and there will always be some topics that wont be covered due to the lack of time .............if you have to exclude at least some important topics anyway, why not excluding a controversial topic that is hard to manage for most teachers?

I am not against teaching evolution, but one shouldn't make a big deal if evolution is excluded for some reason and I would have the same opinion with photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs etc.

Evolution is the back-bone of the biological sciences - to not cover that is simply ludicrous at best.

The fact that this is part of an Islamification of Turkey is the real issue.

Kindest regards,

James

evolution is just an other topic.

only fanatic atheists and fanatic theists make a big deal on weather if evolution is taught in biology class or not.

besides fanatic students are trained to question everything the teacher tells them, so unless you can afford to higher competent teachers that can deal with these fanatic students, removing evolution seems to be a good alternative.

The one single silver lining.... actually turns out to be a shit lining.

The truth is that teaching evolution in Turkey was ludicrous anyway. Far too many kids aren't enrolled in these state schools anyway, so they're never exposed to that antiquated dangerous idea. Those in state schools can leave on religious grounds. And teachers are often fanatics themselves and share the approximate expertise of the topic Leroy here's has managed.

In my experience, it is nearly always better not to teach something than to teach it badly.

WarK wrote:The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?

would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?

again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

They don't have to learn everything. Evolution is part of the basics. It gives an overall understanding of the nature of life. It explains why so many things about the diversity of life on earth are the particular way they are.

We teach this thing called history of civilization and the world too. You might always come back and argue that it shouldn't matter how things came to be the way they are, what matters is the way they are now. But that just doesn't bear out in practice. History helps us understand our relationships to our neighbors, why borders exist between countries, how our system of government came to be, why we speak the language we do and all these things. It gives context that explain motivations and relationships.

This is the role of evolution in basic biology, it serves as a giant context-giver to all the things we see that helps us understand their importance in ways merely being told that they exist, can't give. Evolution is important for that reason alone.

leroy wrote:So is learning about evolution, more important than learning about photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs or any other topic relevant to biology?

why ? under what basis?

1) Because it underpins them all, and therefore brings a unifying concept, a foundational theory into the topic and that serves to provide a vastly more coherent framework of knowledge about Biology than just teaching the bits. Essentially, your proposal is that we teach language, but never talk about grammar, spelling, punctuation, tenses, the role of verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Can it be done? Sure! You can learn languages naively just by listening to them, but educational institutes don't operate by having everyone go out and reinvent the wheel each academic year - we teach what we have shown to be practical knowledge, so that the next generations can build on that. This is, after all, how knowledge grows.

I know, I know... if you're stuck believing that a book is the last word on knowledge, then you can't really understand why any other study is relevant.

Evolution should be taught in biology because it is a basic subject that affects/influences everything else.

It would be like teaching modern European history, but skipping World War 1.It would be like teaching math, but skipping division.It would be like teaching Contemporary Christianity, but skipping the Reformation.